Paying for a Money orders using a credit card

[majesus]

Is there a place where you can get a money order, but use your credit card to pay for it?
The reason why I want to get a money order versus a cash advance is because I want the CC points.

I am interested to know if this is possible.
Thanks.

[nolookingca]

Is there a place where you can get a money order, but use your credit card to pay for it?
The reason why I want to get a money order versus a cash advance is because I want the CC points.

I am interested to know if this is possible.
Thanks.

Maybe a postal money order? I don't think it's worth it though. You pay a fee for the money order that probably negates any points you earn.

[Hellfire]

Is there a place where you can get a money order, but use your credit card to pay for it?
The reason why I want to get a money order versus a cash advance is because I want the CC points.

I am interested to know if this is possible.
Thanks.

Sorry no such place. Money Orders are guaranteed funds, so the issuer of the money order must also get guaranteed funds ie. Cash or Debit.

[paleo]

Speaking of money orders, if you DON'T fill out the PAY TO: field (name) and just fill in your senders info, is it still safe and traceable?

[fovea]

Is there a place where you can get a money order, but use your credit card to pay for it?


There use to be... www.bidpay.com ...but no longer. Plus, it was in US funds only. >:(

[mork]

Is there a place where you can get a money order, but use your credit card to pay for it?
The reason why I want to get a money order versus a cash advance is because I want the CC points.

I am interested to know if this is possible.
Thanks.

I had this idea once where I'd buy money orders with my CC, deposit them, then pay off the CC. All awhile racking up my points.

The fee is low enough on postal money orders that it could worthwhile. Canada post has maximum $1000 money orders with a flat fee of $3.95. That is essentially 0.4% so even a 1% cashback CC would have you out ahead.

Unfortunatley, as already stated, I don't think anyone provides money orders in exchange for credit.

Let me know if you find something! :)

[pitz]

Mork, the casino around here used to sell gift certificates on credit, and they would appear on the credit card as a normal purchase, and not as a cash advance. The gift certificates were fully convertible to cash at the casino (which I would just take across the street to the bank and deposit to my LOC as free credit for a month till the CC came due for a payment).

Accumulated tens of thousands of free Aeroplan miles that way a few years back. Till the casino/banks cracked down, of course. Dr. Norum, our stats prof, would have been proud that I figured out a fool-proof way of making a casino pay to have me as a customer ;)

[a_1_a]

I had this idea once where I'd buy money orders with my CC, deposit them, then pay off the CC. All awhile racking up my points.

The fee is low enough on postal money orders that it could worthwhile. Canada post has maximum $1000 money orders with a flat fee of $3.95. That is essentially 0.4% so even a 1% cashback CC would have you out ahead.

Unfortunatley, as already stated, I don't think anyone provides money orders in exchange for credit.

Let me know if you find something! :)
I did it at Sears Travel Service many years(at least 10) ago. But I don't think they allow it any more.

[ebizimage]

Actually I bought foreign currency using credit card before. But their exchange rate will cost you more than 3%..I think. It's this site http://www.cashbycourier.com

[mork]

Mork, the casino around here used to sell gift certificates on credit, and they would appear on the credit card as a normal purchase, and not as a cash advance.

haha, thats great! I've thought of a few schemes to rack up CC points, but nothing adds up when you investigate fees, exchange rates, and whatever other barriers exist.

I was thinking online casino/poker sites are a possibility, but a few big deposits/withdrawals with no play and I'm certain you'd be losing your account pretty quickly (and even worse, lose your account while it has a balance).

It falls a little flat though as most will just refund your CC up to the amount of your deposit when you withdraw (sending the remainder by another means). That said, for whatever reaosn, the site PokerStars does this as a policy with the exception of Mastercard transactions - in which case, it is very possible. I just haven't bothered as I'm certain they'd lock you out pretty quickly.

[tkyoshi]

Depends on your credit card issuer, even if you were able to do it, some will treat it as a cash advance.

Kind of like lottery purchases (Direct, like bclc.com), while not exactly the same some will charge a fee to pur a lottery purcahse to your card and others will just treat it as a normal transaction.

[mork]

while we're on the topic of schemes (sort of).. I thought I'd share this one with ya..

a guy I knew noticed something peculiar one day about his PC account. When he deposited a cheque, his balance went up immediatley (not when it finally cleared) - it wasn't all available for withdrawal yet though.

After writing a cheque to himself (from another bank account), he noticed something else. PC was slow.. like 1 week slow (I guess the deposits at the machine are shipped off to Ontario for processing and this was in SK).

So... he exploited this in a big way. He wrote cheques to himself (from his PC account) and deposited them at an ATM into his PC account. I think he was doing $24,000 cheques figuring a flag went off at $25k (or some other such logic).

the process looked like this:
1) Write $25k cheque
2) Deposit it.
3) Your balance goes up $25k
4) 1 week later, when the cheque is processed, it goes down $25k (funds get withdrawn).

So, I think he threw in about 5 cheques a day for a total in the range of $125k.. did this daily, so before ANY funds ever got withdrawn, he had a balance of... well, a lot of money.. then he just keeps doing it to maintain that balance.

If/when he decides to quit, he simply stops doing it and a week later his account will be back to normal (plus some nice earned interest!).

He got away with this for quite some time, withdrawing real money equal to the interest he was making. He made several thousand dollar in a short period.

How did it unravel? He walked into Superstore and sat down with a banker and requested a loan.. they pulled up his account and questioned why a man with $1M in the bank is looking for a $5k loan. They called the 'real' bank and notified them.. they put him on the phone right then and there and the rep said to him "we know what you're up to here, we're going to have to close your account'.

Still, he was few thousand bucks richer. I had mucho respect for the size of his gonads after hearing that story :)

[mork]

while we're on the topic of schemes (sort of).. I thought I'd share this one with ya..


Oh, and let me follow-up by saying that I later learned that this is called 'cheque kiting' as described in this wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_fraud#Cheque_kiting).

It is illegal (so don't try it at home.. or, uhh, at your bank). It is also commonly done with a complex web of accounts (not usually a single account as described above). I'd assume banks watch for activity that would indicate kiting, so I' cannot explain how he got away with it for as long as he did (less than a few weeks).

[majesus]

Oh, and let me follow-up by saying that I later learned that this is called 'cheque kiting' as described in this wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_fraud#Cheque_kiting).

It is illegal (so don't try it at home.. or, uhh, at your bank). It is also commonly done with a complex web of accounts (not usually a single account as described above). I'd assume banks watch for activity that would indicate kiting, so I' cannot explain how he got away with it for as long as he did (less than a few weeks).

I got in trouble for something similar along these lines... I was using my CITI bank Petro CC to write cash advances when CITI had the petro promotion Mastercheques. I was writing cash advances to my bank account. However, I was NOT KITTING. I was not trying to make it appear as funds in two accounts. I DID WAIT for the cheques to clear and then I would deposit it back into my CC and repeat the process. I DID WAIT until the money went through!

I was trying to taking advantage of the petro points offered by Citi. I even requested more promtional cheques for this... and they sent them to me! I followed the card agreement and no wheres is there a limit clause for cash advances... SO would you say this activity is illegal or fraudulent?

In a month I racked up over 80k. That was end of June... and then they cancled my account because they don't want their members utilizing their accountant in this fashion. Then they retracted some of my cashed cheques from my bank account. I dunno why they would retract the money they already deposited from my cash advance? But now... I'm waiting for this balance of my money to be returned to me via CITI.

I must sadly say, I did make a good mess for trying to achieve the petro points... and I'm not whinning, I am definetly responsible for my actions in getting my account terminated.
Lesson learned! :(

HEre is the thread I wrote about this experience:
LINK (http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=310069)

[pitz]

Still, he was few thousand bucks richer. I had mucho respect for the size of his gonads after hearing that story :)

Yeah arbitraging the float was a game that could be played a few years ago with reasonable success. Where people end up getting the handcuffs slapped on themselves is when they steal that $1M balance in the PC account and the cheques end up bouncing.

Its become mostly impossible today because of the new electronic clearing rules recently introduced by the Canadian Payments Association, which include almost-real-time clearing of cheques electronically.

Banks were losing millions of dollars to cash that was sitting in suspense on interest alone, and of course, there was a significant risk of fraud insofar as bounced cheques were concerned.

mork, i'm surprised PC Financial actually cleared a $24k cheque without positive verified funds being available in the account before-hand. I know that whenever I deposit a cheque of anywhere near that size in any of my accounts with Canadian chartered banks, it takes at least a week before I can actually draw funds on that balance (which is annoying, because under the new electronic clearing rules, I know they are clearing cheques overnight, but I guess its their anti-fraud procedures).

[Hellfire]

while we're on the topic of schemes (sort of).. I thought I'd share this one with ya..

a guy I knew noticed something peculiar one day about his PC account. When he deposited a cheque, his balance went up immediatley (not when it finally cleared) - it wasn't all available for withdrawal yet though.

After writing a cheque to himself (from another bank account), he noticed something else. PC was slow.. like 1 week slow (I guess the deposits at the machine are shipped off to Ontario for processing and this was in SK).

So... he exploited this in a big way. He wrote cheques to himself (from his PC account) and deposited them at an ATM into his PC account. I think he was doing $24,000 cheques figuring a flag went off at $25k (or some other such logic).

the process looked like this:
1) Write $25k cheque
2) Deposit it.
3) Your balance goes up $25k
4) 1 week later, when the cheque is processed, it goes down $25k (funds get withdrawn).

So, I think he threw in about 5 cheques a day for a total in the range of $125k.. did this daily, so before ANY funds ever got withdrawn, he had a balance of... well, a lot of money.. then he just keeps doing it to maintain that balance.

If/when he decides to quit, he simply stops doing it and a week later his account will be back to normal (plus some nice earned interest!).

He got away with this for quite some time, withdrawing real money equal to the interest he was making. He made several thousand dollar in a short period.

How did it unravel? He walked into Superstore and sat down with a banker and requested a loan.. they pulled up his account and questioned why a man with $1M in the bank is looking for a $5k loan. They called the 'real' bank and notified them.. they put him on the phone right then and there and the rep said to him "we know what you're up to here, we're going to have to close your account'.

Still, he was few thousand bucks richer. I had mucho respect for the size of his gonads after hearing that story :)

Your friend is damn lucky that they just closed his account. They could have gone after him and got all the money he made in interest back + penalties. Its fraud, and illegal as hell.

And fyi this is what Kiting is, it involves at least two bank accounts.

You have zero dollars in Bank A and B.
-You write a $1000 cheque (#1) from your account at bank A and put it into Bank B.
-You balance of bank B goes up to $1000
-You withdraw the $1000 right away from bank B and now have $1000 in your pocket.
-You write a $1000 cheque (#2) from your account at bank B and put it into Bank A to cover the cheque you wrote from Bank A.
- Your account at Bank A goes up to $1000.
- Cheque one clears
-You write a $1000 cheque (#3) from you account at bank A to cover cheque #2 at bank B and deposit the cheque at bank B.
- Cheque two clears

And so on..... till one of the banks gets smart and the other bank is out the $1000.

[pitz]

Would it still be fraud (or cheque kiting) if the person in question had $25k in each account, and executed the same series of transactions, obtaining, in theory, double interest?

I would suspect so, as its a form of deception to obtain more interest through manipulation of the float, but theres no risk of cheques bouncing if the funds are actually in the account the cheques were drawn upon.

The wikipedia definition refers to a broke bum who tries such a scheme, and is absolutely relying upon shortcomings in the system to avoid a situation of NSF. But what about someone who isn't broke? Their kites would never actually crash, and the worst that could happen (criminal prosecution aside) would be 1 account = $0, the other account = $50k.

[tkyoshi]

Would it still be fraud (or cheque kiting) if the person in question had $25k in each account, and executed the same series of transactions, obtaining, in theory, double interest?

I would suspect so, as its a form of deception to obtain more interest through manipulation of the float, but theres no risk of cheques bouncing if the funds are actually in the account the cheques were drawn upon.

The wikipedia definition refers to a broke bum who tries such a scheme, and is absolutely relying upon shortcomings in the system to avoid a situation of NSF. But what about someone who isn't broke? Their kites would never actually crash, and the worst that could happen (criminal prosecution aside) would be 1 account = $0, the other account = $50k.

Well no, cause you actually have the money. Though I don't think i follow you. You are saying they want to earn double interest, though any interest they would earn would be the same?

Like if you have $1000 in one account and $1000 in another and they both have the same rate, you'd get the same amount of interest as if you had $2000 in one account.

Unless you're saying you temporarily inflate each account by $25K each time? So they both show $50K? I'm not sure about that, I think technically that would not be Cheque kitting because the money is actually there. But I am not 100% sure so someone may want to add their opinion or state the facts.

[pitz]

Unless you're saying you temporarily inflate each account by $25K each time? So they both show $50K? I'm not sure about that, I think technically that would not be Cheque kitting because the money is actually there. But I am not 100% sure so someone may want to add their opinion or state the facts.

Yes, thats exactly what I am saying. I don't know if the Wiki definition is flawed (as the typical kiter is a broke fraud artist, and not someone wealthy enough to have a substantial sum of actual funds in each account), or if what I suggest doesn't meet the definition of kiting. I suspect its still a form of fraud, nevertheless, but it wouldn't be as blatent as creating money out of thin air as a kiter does.

Of course, I'd never suggest doing that, but it is a method that would manage the risk of a cheque having a hold placed on it, or somehow not clearing as predicted.